


This Green Land of Ours

by plingo_kat



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-20
Updated: 2011-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-26 07:34:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/280431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plingo_kat/pseuds/plingo_kat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sun is harsh in the desert.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Green Land of Ours

**Author's Note:**

> I've been going slowly stir-crazy knowing that my sister has Revelations and I can't play it until Thanksgiving break. Therefore, I give you this fic, born of a googledoc named "let me vent my asscreed feeligns." (Yes, I am classy.) I am exceptionally confused by this fic, considering that Ezio is my favorite, I kind of actually dislike Desmond, and Altair is a mystery to me.

The sun is harsh in the desert.

Desmond-as-Altair thinks this as he mounts his horse, legs settling between packed saddlebags, a dozen canteens of precious water. A man can travel for days seeing no other living creature, no sign of life but for the shadow of vultures or the shifting, unsettling tracks of snakes.

Out there, the sands stretch away into eternity.

Out there, the land is vast and the sky, endless.

Out there, there is only Allah, and the strength of man.

Out there, there is death.

 

 

Each transition in and out of the Animus is a bright, blinding light; each time, Desmond-as-himself-but-still-partly-Altair thinks of the time when he was younger and more foolish than he is now, when he walked the desert with minimal supplies and found himself wandering, lost. When at last he could wander no more, and laid down to die, and the sun burned his eyes, white, then red through the thin flesh of his closed lids.

Of how he woke, forever and no time at all later, with a woman’s worried face hovering over his own.

He does not thank her. He doesn’t know if he wants to.

 

 

The silence drives him a little crazy.

(Ha, he thinks. A little. A lot. More.)

In the desert, there is no need for speech. Doing so merely dries out your mouth, and the words sound strangely flat, snatched away by the wind. In Abstergo there are always cameras. In both places, there is no one to reply.

Desmond-as-himself almost longs for the time immediately before the Animus sessions, if only for some other human contact. If only for a chance to speak in English, not Arabic.

 

 

Altair in cities is always slightly restless, slightly on-edge. Cramped roads filled with people and buildings block the view of the sky and make him uneasy. It is why he likes heights, prefers to travel over rooftops than on the ground, climbs all the towers he can, only to jump off after.

Captivity does not suit an eagle. Humans, no matter what they wish, cannot fly.

Falling, then, is the next best thing.

 

 

Every day Desmond-as-himself bleeds more into Desmond-as-Altair. Every transition into the Animus is smoother, every pull out more disorienting. Sometimes Desmond-as-whoever-the-hell-he-is-now will look at glass and marvel at it’s clearness, the quality; sometimes he will look down and expect to see dusty boots instead of well-worn sneakers.

All the time, he wishes to be free.

 

 

Being confined for weeks, only able to venture into three rooms, does nothing for Desmond’s mental health. This, he thinks, must be at least half of what is contributing to his craziness, not just the Animus. When it gets to be too much he jumps at the walls, climbs on the dresser and the table; swipes his mysteriously given keycard and eyes the metal support girders in the main room.

Goes to the window, that looks out into nothing.

 _Everything is permitted,_ Altair-as-an-echo whispers in his ear.

Not yet, Desmond thinks. Not yet.


End file.
